Has it really been a month since our last “What We’re Watching”?!? Today I’ve lined up another group of rare and rarely seen models that…
4 CommentsTag: Volkswagen
ANOTHER Scirocco?!?!
Yeah. Another Scirocco. If you can be fascinated by the proliferation of the mega-Beetle 911, though, you can bear with me. Volkswagen’s replacement for the Karmann Ghia, what would become the Porsche 924, proved to be perhaps a step too far for the company. What it created instead, once that was abandoned, was a bit of a legend in its own right. Based upon the pedestrian underpinnings of the Golf but actually developed in tandem and released prior to the more famous hatchback, Giugiaro’s penning of a slinkier two-door coupe variant of the platform was simply beautiful. As the Ghia had before it, it married serious Italian styling credentials with the practicality of an economy family hatchback.
Volkswagen’s new EA827 was the power of choice. Here displacing 1588 ccs and generating 71 horsepower, it was adequate motivation to top 100 mph – just. Amazing at it may seem, the nearly 1.6 liter unit in this 1977 was an upgrade over the 1.5 from the model’s 1974 launch in the U.S., though it only gained one net horsepower. They were diminutive cars; a 94.5 inch wheel base and only 155.7 inches overall, the first generation Scirocco is an amazing 10 inches shorter than the model I looked at yesterday. Even though it had little horsepower, road tests revealed that the Scirocco could out-accelerate a Mustang II Mach 1 (its contemporary) in the quarter mile. How dreary must that shoot-out have looked to our modern eyes? Suspension in front was a strut with coil-over spring setup; the rear was technically independent with a trailing arm configuration. Wheels were 13″ by 5″, or about the same size as modern brake discs on high performance cars.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1977 Volkswagen Scirocco on eBay
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As I mentioned recently in my 1979 Volkswagen Scirocco post, early water-cooled Volkswagens are really beginning to stretch their legs in value. That’s especially true for survivor cars; those untouched by the hand of times and hands of the traditional Volkswagen crew. It’s unusual to see a Scirocco at all these days, but one in pristine original condition with low mileage? Yeah, play the lottery when that comes across your field of view. Well, at least some (the traditional fans of these cars, for the most part) will now have hope to hit the lotto to throw their hat into the bidding for some of these cars:
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1982 Volkswagen Scirocco on eBay
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In roughly 1999, a local-to-me European car business turned up with something quite unusual. It was a pastel blue 1984 Volkswagen Rabbit. There was nothing particularly special about it; it was a base model with steel wheels. It wasn’t unusually optioned. It wasn’t a GTI. In fact, there was only one really remarkable thing about it – it had only 5,000 miles on the odometer from its single owner, and was in close-to-new shape.
The story went that the original owner had suffered a heart attack when the car was quite new. The widow had left the car in the garage, untouched by all but dust, until finally an estate sale liberated the single oil change bunny. The condition was certainly astounding, but to me the asking price at that time was, too. The seller was looking for $5,000.
It was pretty cool that the car was like a new fifteen year old car, but then cars had come a long way since 1984 in 1999, and the collector market on the Rabbit hadn’t really taken off. In 1999, $5,000 would have bought you a very nice 2.0 16V GTI, after all.
Fast forward to today.
It’s been an astounding nearly twenty years since today’s equivalent to my parable was new in the dealership. Like my memory, it’s a very basic Golf in very good condition with very low mileage. Similar to my story, cars have come a very long way in the past twenty years, and a quick jaunt in this buzzy, basic and slow Golf will quickly remind you of that. So has the market on a clean, low mileage automatic base Golf taken off yet, or is this doomed to a similar fate as my Rabbit – to sit and wait for jsut the right nostalgic buyer?
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1998 Volkswagen Golf GL on eBay
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The Type 21/28 Lasten Transporter doesn’t get much press on this site mostly because the LT series of Transporters from Volkswagen was never offered here. Introduced in the mid-1970s as a larger work vehicle than the T2, in brought water-cooled motors and a more traditional front-engine, rear-drive layout to Volkswagen’s van recipe. Well, I say “front-engine”, but technically this was a mid-engine van since the layout placed the engine above the front axle.
The LT was a work van first and foremost, so they were not luxurious in nature. Often snapped up by delivery companies and municipalities, they lived hard lives and it has become even more unusual to see them today as the newest is new some 22 years old. They were available in many different configurations with different engines, from the 2.8 ton LT28 through the mega-duty LT55. Both gasoline and diesel (along with a turbocharger in some cases) were available, and Volkswagen even briefly offered a Westfalia camper version of the larger T4.
This particular example is from mid-run. A LT35D, it features the Volkswagen D24 DW 2.4 liter inline-6 normally aspirated diesel. With a 23.5:1 compression ratio these motors sound impressive but didn’t return much in terms of power; sans turbo (and as seen in Volvos, too!), they made 74 horsepower at 4,000 rpms and all of 114 lb.ft of torque. It has has an interesting history, having lived its working life as a fire truck at Zahnradfabrik Passau in Bavaria on the Austrian border; a production plant for the company you known much better as simply “ZF”: